The cryptocurrency market has seen some incredible growth in the past 18 months. In 2021 alone, centralized and decentralized exchanges listed more than 5,000 new cryptocurrencies.
At the same time, there are also a lot of trash coins and scams going around. As a crypto investor, you might find it difficult to parse through all the noise and find the hidden gems that have true potential.
In this article, we explore five fairly new cryptocurrencies and discuss their characteristics. This should give you sufficient grounds to assess whether investing in altcoins is a wise decision.
1. LuckyBlock
LuckyBlock (LBLOCK) is a blockchain platform that offers its users the possibility to participate in a global, decentralized lottery.
Even though it’s new (it came out in January 2022), the project has gained significant traction in a short amount of time. Just a couple of weeks after the LBLOCK token hit decentralized exchange PancakeSwap, its price skyrocketed. The project reached $100m in market cap in a record-breaking amount of time.
LBLOCK is the utility token of the lottery platform and allows users to get instant payouts, among other perks. For example, holders get access to a passive stream of income by winning a percentage of each jackpot, regardless of whether they participate or not. The token has a maximum supply of 100 billion, and a circulating supply of 32 billion tokens.
LBLOCK is subject to a deflationary policy, as, with every transaction, the protocol burns some tokens. This should ensure increased scarcity over time, and, therefore, a value increase in the long term.
Also read: Top 10 Cryptocurrency Research Tools Help for New Investors
2. Shiba Inu
Shiba Inu is arguably the most successful meme coin that emerged in the bull run of 2020-2021. Countless Dogecoin copycats suddenly appeared on the markets, but most of them were worthless. Shiba Inu managed to stand out from the crowd by proposing better value, having solid fundamentals, and building a loyal community.
The SHIB token became popular when Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin donated $1bn worth of the tokens to charity. The creators had sent Buterin 50 trillion tokens, hoping to initiate a marketing stunt.
The SHIB token is not scarce in any way, with 550,000 billion tokens released in the markets. However, almost half of this supply has been burned by now, limiting the supply to “just” 589 trillion SHIB tokens.
Worth noting is that the SHIB crypto also powers an intricate decentralized swap ecosystem. As such, it provides users with multiple methods of generating passive income through yield farming and staking.
While the price of the SHIB cryptocurrency has been in continuous freefall since its all-time high in October 2021, many believe the bottom is very close. According to SHIB analysts, the token could see a consequential revival in the following months.
3. Terra
Terra (LUNA) is one of the most successful decentralized finance protocols to emerge last year. Released in 2019, this blockchain really started to spark the interest of investors and developers in 2021.
Its LUNA token started the year at a humble price of $0.80 and has reached over $80 in 2022, an increase of almost 10,000%. This steady growth is what has made LUNA join the top 10 cryptos list.
The Terra protocol provides an infrastructure for creating stablecoins. However, where it differs from other blockchains of its kind is that it enables algorithmic adjustment of the supply based on demand. This ensures that its value is always pegged to the fiat currency.
The LUNA token has a supply of 761 million and features a burning mechanism to keep it under this threshold. The UST stablecoin that runs on this protocol has quickly become one of the favorite on-ramps for crypto enthusiasts.
Its valuation today exceeds $15bn, and the crypto sits in the top 15 cryptocurrencies by market cap.
Also read: Top 10 Tips For Successfully Trading
4. Yearn.finance
Yearn.finance is a protocol that facilitates the decentralized financial (Defi) market for its users by aggregating most Defi protocols into a single platform. It aims to provide a beginner-friendly point of entry for investors that don’t have time to learn the ins and outs of Defi.
It allows investors to stake in various decentralized tools, such as Curve and Aave, through a single application. Moreover, it ensures that market participants always have access to the highest yield possible, without having to jump through hoops and switch networks to do so.
The YFI token is a low-supply cryptocurrency (36,000) that serves as a governance token of the platform. Its high scarcity and limited supply are what make it interesting for investors as a deflationary store of value.
5. PancakeSwap
PancakeSwap is the most successful decentralized exchange that runs on the Binance Smart Chain. This platform provides automated market-making mechanisms for quick token swaps and liquidity, providing services for passive income to its users.
The main advantage of this DEX platform is that it uses the highly-scalable BSC for token transfers, ensuring very low transaction fees. Other exchanges like Uniswap that run on Ethereum fell down in popularity with traders because of the high gas fees on that network.
The CAKE token is directly used in the protocol for liquidity farming and additional rewards from other projects. It has no maximum supply, and there is around 277 million CAKE in circulation at the moment.
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